The 500 calorie deficit myth

Rays_Wife

The author is missing something. I don't care what the mantra is about 3500 calories or whatever. None of that matters. All you do is find a calorie amount that helps you lose at a healthy rate. When you do that, calorie counting works. It's so easy. Don't make simple things so freaking complicated. So MFP gives you 1800 a day. And you don't lose. Then go to 170 for a few weeks. Let's say you still don't lose. Then go to 1600. Ah! At 1600 you lose .5 in a week. Nice job. Now you've found it. Duh! This isn't that hard, but people try to make it so complicated and it's not.

THIS

neanderthin

Ok then, what's the moral of the story............500 calorie deficits are a myth, starvation makes you binge, so don't diet, stay fat....good, thanks.

ninerbuff

None of this was particularly earth shattering. We have long known that the body doesn't lose 100% fat while in a calorie deficit, so that is just misleading. The Minnesota Starvation study was done on healthy weight subjects. It's interesting, but doesn't prove anything except that prolonged extreme calorie deficit is bad. We also already know that. This is why MFP recommends a REASONABLE calorie deficit and calorie counting (which DOES, in fact, work). 500 calories may not be a reasonable deficit for many people, but it may be for others. It depends on how much you have to lose in the first place. It's all about maximizing fat loss and minimizing muscle loss by eating your macros and exercising. And yes, for each individual, it IS calories in, calories out. If you eat less than you burn you will lose weight, and vise versa. This article just perpetuates some myths while repeating half truths.

THIS.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

zyxst

In for later

Rays_Wife

Ok then, what's the moral of the story............500 calorie deficits are a myth, starvation makes you binge, so don't diet, stay fat....good, thanks.

Guess we're all doomed no matter what we do. *deletes MFP account and crams mouth full of calories*

Stupidest thing I've ever read here on MFP. And trust me, I've seen a lot of stupid things here :laugh:

WalkingAlong

It's roughly an additional 6 cals per pound:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9688626

I don't know where this idea that adding muscle to your frame significantly boosts REE comes from.

I figured it was based on some misinterpreted study but it apparently appeared out of thin air in the popular media?

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/16/health/la-he-fitness-muscle-myth-20110516

"Though its origins are uncertain, any number of fitness magazines have made the "50 calories per pound of muscle" statement. Popular weight-loss gurus have jumped on the muscle-building-as-panacea-for-fat-loss bandwagon as well.

Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a 2007 presentation to the National Cosmetology Assn., "Muscle burns about 50 times more calories than fat does." Bill Phillips wrote in his bestselling "Body for Life" that, "through resistance training, you can also significantly increase your metabolic rate … weight training is even superior to aerobic exercise for people who want to lose weight." And Jorge Cruise wrote in "8 Minutes in the Morning" that his exercise regimen "will help you firm up five pounds of lean muscle within the first few weeks, allowing your body to burn an extra 250 calories per day."

neanderthin

Ok then, what's the moral of the story............500 calorie deficits are a myth, starvation makes you binge, so don't diet, stay fat....good, thanks.

Guess we're all doomed no matter what we do. *deletes MFP account and crams mouth full of calories*

Stupidest thing I've ever read here on MFP. And trust me, I've seen a lot of stupid things here :laugh:

Rays_Wife

Ok then, what's the moral of the story............500 calorie deficits are a myth, starvation makes you binge, so don't diet, stay fat....good, thanks.

Guess we're all doomed no matter what we do. *deletes MFP account and crams mouth full of calories*

Stupidest thing I've ever read here on MFP. And trust me, I've seen a lot of stupid things here :laugh:

I know. I was referring to the blog in the OP, not you, sorry. (love the gif by the way :laugh: )

dettles

Is it a daily 500 Calorie deficit or weekly?

neanderthin

Ok then, what's the moral of the story............500 calorie deficits are a myth, starvation makes you binge, so don't diet, stay fat....good, thanks.

Guess we're all doomed no matter what we do. *deletes MFP account and crams mouth full of calories*

Stupidest thing I've ever read here on MFP. And trust me, I've seen a lot of stupid things here :laugh:

I know. I was referring to the blog in the OP, not you, sorry. (love the gif by the way :laugh: )

:flowerforyou:

alasin1derland

I believe the 500 calorie method works as a large picture. We all know there are fluctuation circumstances and not all loss is fat. We all know that as we lose we have to adjust our calories. Calories in has to be adjusted as the body becomes more efficient. The 500 calorie method is a solid method if we have solid knowledge to to tweak the details as we go. Long term dieters should have rest periods eating at maintenance to remind the body we don't intend to eat a deficit forever forcing the body to adapt to that deficit. An excellent resource to see on the most basic level the adjustments required to continue loss as your weight goes down is http://www.losertown.org/eats/cal.php
The premiss of weight loss is simple. Calories in vs calories out. Implementing the process is the difficult part.

DopeItUp

So a study that utilized a 1600 calorie deficit is the basis for why a 500 calorie deficit is bad? Are people really this dumb? (don't answer that)

And if a calorie deficit is so bad, and doesn't work - then what does? Hint: nothing.

*screaming internally*

Fullsterkur_woman

this is my second child and breastfeeding is like second nature to me. yes, my GP( practitioner) recomended fewer calories to loose weight because my bmi is 32 and was finding it hard to loose,( low metabolism, thyroid issues) my kids are happy and my baby is a healthy and big and continues putting weight on.
This is why i say listen to your body, if a person of heatlhy Bmi needs to loose a few lbs, then make healthier changes.

If your GP recommended you to eat 1000 calories per day *while breastfeeding* then that GP should sued for malpractice. But I can pretty much guarantee that your GP did not recommend that. Your GP recommended that you eat fewer calories to lose weight (which is sane), not eat as few calories as humanly possible without actually keeling over on a daily basis. I'm willing to bet that you injected the "more is better" attitude into that and decided that if 1800-2000 calories a day is good for weight loss that 1000 calories a day is better.

You should probably be getting 1000 calories *just from fats* while you're breastfeeding (well, more like 600, probably).

Please consider that the health of your baby and setting it up for healthy brain development now and for the rest of its life is vastly more important than you shedding a few pounds *right now*. Can't it wait a few more months?!

neanderthin

So a study that utilized a 1600 calorie deficit is the basis for why a 500 calorie deficit is bad? Are people really this dumb? (don't answer that)

And if a calorie deficit is so bad, and doesn't work - then what does? Hint: nothing.

*screaming internally*

You have to pay for that information......they have pay pal.

19TaraLynn84

I didn't read the article or wade through the responses to see if this had been said already, but there are too many successful people who have lost loads of pounds for an article to tell me it's a myth.

WendyTerry420

TL;DR

Accurate logging and measuring shows that it worked for me. The math was 100% correct.

jofjltncb6

In...

...for LOLz...

...as I prepare for a cut at 500-700+ daily deficit in about a month.

gigglesinthesun

this is my second child and breastfeeding is like second nature to me. yes, my GP( practitioner) recomended fewer calories to loose weight because my bmi is 32 and was finding it hard to loose,( low metabolism, thyroid issues) my kids are happy and my baby is a healthy and big and continues putting weight on.
This is why i say listen to your body, if a person of heatlhy Bmi needs to loose a few lbs, then make healthier changes.

If your GP recommended you to eat 1000 calories per day *while breastfeeding* then that GP should sued for malpractice. But I can pretty much guarantee that your GP did not recommend that. Your GP recommended that you eat fewer calories to lose weight (which is sane), not eat as few calories as humanly possible without actually keeling over on a daily basis. I'm willing to bet that you injected the "more is better" attitude into that and decided that if 1800-2000 calories a day is good for weight loss that 1000 calories a day is better.

You should probably be getting 1000 calories *just from fats* while you're breastfeeding (well, more like 600, probably).

Please consider that the health of your baby and setting it up for healthy brain development now and for the rest of its life is vastly more important than you shedding a few pounds *right now*. Can't it wait a few more months?!

chances are that she went to her GP saying she is eating 1200 cals and is not losing at all. The GP will have taken all her measurements and figured she is not counting properly and thus said eat a 1000 then and assumes that in reality it'll be much higher, but slightly less then before and she'll have a small deficit and actually lose.

keysie1

I did not read everyone's reply to your initial post, so I'm not sure if someone explained the Key's Starvation Experiment adequately. The experiment relates directly to restrictive eaters, primarily in regards to anorexia. The results of this experiment prove that undernourishment itself is enough to put someone in the mentality of restrictive eating. In other words, these men were not comparing their bodies to supermodels. They began to restrict willingly. However, when they were given the opportunity to re-feed themselves, they went into binge-mode (exactly what their bodies needed; being physicality vs mentality though).

The initial blog post may be manipulating the study's results to boast their opinions, but I encourage everyone who is interested to do some more research on the Key's study. It truly is fascinating.... if you are into that kind of thing.